Introduction to the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Colossians

Colossians is another of what are called “the prison epistles.”  These are the letters that Paul wrote as he was imprisoned in Rome around A.D. 62.  (The other prison epistles are Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon.)  Colosse was a church that was not formally founded by Paul, as he had never been there personally.  It was most likely founded by someone who had been converted at Ephesus while Paul was ministering there.  Colosse was around a hundred miles from Ephesus.  It was at one time a great city, but it was on the decline at the time of Paul’s writing and was destroyed shortly thereafter by an earthquake.  The book was closely related to the Book of Philemon, and was probably delivered at the same time as Philemon by Onesimus.  It was related to the book of Ephesians, which was written about the same time.  But whereas Ephesians was written to teach about the church, Colossians was written to teach about Jesus.  At this time in Colosse, there were several heresies that were sprouting up concerning the nature of Jesus.  It would seem that there was a growing Gnosticism, combined with Jewish legalism. 

          The Gnostics believed that they had a special, mystical understanding of who Jesus was, believing Him to be less than God.  They saw Him as a step in the progression from God to man, but they denied His deity and also His humanity.  This mystical philosophy was combined with a legalism that held to the teaching that you could somehow earn status with God by keeping the outward rules of the Law. [i.e. probably the ceremonial parts of the Law, like circumcision.]  Paul responded to this heresy by presenting Jesus as the Creator God, “By Him all things were created” (Co. 1:16).  He declared Him to be completely God and completely man, as he said, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9).  Jesus was God in a body.  He wasn’t a spirit being, nor was He any less than completely God…The Book then goes on to give practical application of the truth of who Jesus is and forms a beautifully outline of the Christian life, centered around the Person of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.” [Comment by Pastor Chuck Smith in The WORD For TODAY BIBLE, New King James Version, p. 1565]